


About Eighty Eight Percent

by flappergirlsfolly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flappergirlsfolly/pseuds/flappergirlsfolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bran's hospitalisation has created tension in the Stark family, from which ugly truths emerge. Save for the flicker of light to guide the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Eighty Eight Percent

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first post to AO3, so I hope I haven't made this an utterly awful experience for anyone!

The bright, cold light of the hospital is all he’s known for days. He thinks he might have gone home in the family minivan- he might have changed, and probably shaved at some point.

He remembers the splashes of auburn hair blotched down the row of hard plastic seats in the white corridor, and the feeling of his nails repeatedly digging into his palm being broken as a cup of hot, but weak coffee is stuffed between them. 

And Bran. 

He knows Bran. 

The shock of dark crimson hair on the bleak, starchy pillow, his face almost as pale, devoid of laughter, or joy, or his cheeky smile. 

It disturbs him that nobody speaks. The Starks sit silently, without eye contact, without communication. 

Catelyn rests stoically against Ned, his hand splayed in her thick, dark hair. Occasionally, he turns his head and presses a kiss to her fringe, his eyes tightly clenched closed, savouring the connection. 

He thinks of the redhead he wants to see, but they’re not going back to school until Bran gets better (and even then, there’s no way of knowing that she wouldn’t push him away). He slides his phone between his hands, the plastic and metal warm from his pocket as it moves in his hands. 

Robb nudges him, and Jon stands silently. It’s his turn. He walks away, his boots thudding softly on the linoleum, to the drink machine. Tea for Sansa, Ned and Catelyn, coffee for he and Robb, raspberry fizz for Arya. Rickon is with Osha, but Jon wishes he wasn’t. He wants him here, running around making siren noises with his Tonka fire engine. 

He might make the family smile. 

His fingers pinch his nose as the hot liquid streams through the little spout, slamming to the bottom of the paper cup. The glass of the dispenser machine tells him he looks like crap. He winds his fingers through his hair and tugs, until the pain in his scalp makes his eyes crash open. 

In the reflection of the observation window when they sit in the corridor, he can see Catelyn giving him looks filled with such hatred that bile rises in his throat. When he returns, he passes out the beverages in silence. 

She looks up at him, and her voice cracks with its first use in a week. 

“It should have been you.” 

If he had slapped him across the face with a whip, it would have hurt less. He hopes it doesn’t show. 

“Cat-“ Ned begins, but they ignore him and he falls silent. 

Jon cranes his neck to look at his brother, in the comical, mocking hospital gown emblazoned with dogs and tennis balls. His lashes fan across his round, childish cheeks. Her eyes brim with tears, the sapphire irises glassed over. 

She sheds them for Bran, for her unfaithful husband, for her. 

Nobody says anything. 

_‘It should have been you.’_

He nods, and excuses himself to go to the restroom. It should have been him. It should have. The thoughts whir and storm in his head as he brings himself to the marked door. He should have fallen. Nobody would care if he lay comatose in a hospital bed, because the Starks would still be their impeccable matched set, and all of his pathetic tall lankiness would wither away until only his bones remained. 

He bursts through the door and loiters, lost for a long moment, before lunging for the plastic rubbish bin and slamming his foot into it. With every impact of his boot, the plastic crumples, but nothing falls away like he hopes. 

Catelyn still hates him. He’s no Stark. His brother is still lying comatose under that _fucking_ fluorescent lighting that won’t stop flickering. The bin is a crumpled mess, with black scuff marks from where it was rammed into the wall, and he splashes water over his face to quell the anger that still bubbles inside him. 

“Hello?” Arya strolls casually into the bathroom, as if it weren’t the men’s, and raises her eyebrows at the state of the wreckage. 

“We’re going.” Is all she says, and extends her hand. He cuffs her hair in a half-hearted ruffle, and she kicks him. 

Jon doesn’t make eye contact with anyone as they leave, even when Catelyn abruptly closes the door before he can say good night to Bran.

It must have been later than any of them realise, for beyond the distant glow of the car park lights, an empty blackness looms. 

“Jon?” 

His breath quickens in the crisp night air, and he breaks away from his family at the sound of her voice. 

She’s standing up from the wooden bench, fiddling with the zipper of her green hoodie, over her nerdfighters t-shirt. 

“What-what are you doing here?” 

“You texted me!” she scoffs; holding out her phone and letting the screen roll upwards with lazy flicks of her thumb. “A lot.” 

“Shit…” Oh, gods. He didn’t even realise he was doing it- “I promise I’m not a total freak.” 

Her face, as always, is impassive, but something is lit in the sky blue of her eyes. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. Your brother’s in the hospital- you haven’t been at school, and I was…” 

“Worried?” he asks incredulously, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her, smell her skin, run his fingers through her hair (that always manages to have that just-had-sex look to it). 

“No!” she defends, instantly, before adding in a more measured tone, “you fuck someone behind the bike sheds, it’s common courtesy to… make sure everything’s okay.” 

“Just let me be happy you came, will you?” he implores, and she snorts a laugh. “Can I…?” he asks (rather daringly, since the last time he did, she punched him) and holds out his arms. 

Her lips thin, and she rolls her eyes in frustration before slamming into him and tightening her arms around his ribs. And all at once, everything relaxes. The smell of her hair is intoxicating, and he grasps at the ends that fall down her back. There’s something strangely powerful about holding her skinny frame to his body. As though, with her, he could conquer his problems, the country, and the world. 

“Thank you.” He whispers into the skin beside her ear, and she does not respond but to bury her face in his neck. 

“Jon!” 

The bark startles him, and they jolt as Catelyn rattles the car keys in their direction, as Robb attempts to yank them away. “We’re leaving in thirty seconds with or without you.” 

When he looks back at Ygritte, she’s frowning over his shoulder. “Your brother will wake up soon, Jon Snow.” She tells him softly. “You Starks fight like hell.” 

_“Twenty seconds!”_

He doesn’t think. He just kisses her. 

_She’s so going to kill me for this, oh, she’s going to punch me in the face._

But her lips are warm and hard against his, her mouth supple and red, and he’s only ever kissed two other people before her (excluding Theon because that was a dare) and gods, he knows he never wants to stop. 

His thumb strokes the skin at the base of her jaw, as they part. “Don’t apologise.” She says after a moment. 

“How do you know I was going to?” 

“I just know these things, Jon Snow.” 

Somewhere behind them, a car door slams, and the engine of the Stark’s minivan revs to life. 

“Bloody hell…” he mutters, as the silver car shoots past, out of the car park and into the night. “I didn’t think she was serious.” 

Before he can do anything else, her hand rests on his jaw and directs it away from the departing Starks. 

“Don’t…” she tells him, before standing up on her toes (she’s short and it’s cute) and presses her mouth to his- 

“Er, kids?”

“Your family has the worst timing.” She whispers, before they turn around to see Ned looking extremely uncomfortable. 

“Hi Dad,” he greets awkwardly at the same time she sing-songs “Hey Mr Stark.” 

He holds up his own car keys. “Come on, then. Ygritte, we’re giving you a lift before you decide to make me a grandchild.” 

For some reason, they sit in the back seat like kids, and with a creeping hand action to the middle console they end up tangling fingers. 

“Please tell me you’re not scamming off your brother’s condition.” Ned says, as they pull away from the curb outside Ygritte’s foster home. 

“I’m about eighty eight percent sure she’s my soul mate.” 

Ned raises an eyebrow, and Jon looks down at his hands. 

“And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I’ll run away from home.”


End file.
